Short Stories, Long Odds

I am sitting on my back porch, which I had a hand in building. My dog is here as well, and I am having a drink. Brutus (the dog) is usually noisy and mobile, but at the moment he has settled in and is doing little else but observing.

We just watched the sun go down. Because it isn’t all the way gone, the sky is a riot of pink and purple pastels.

There is something very nice about all of this.

It sounds very kitsch to write something like, “Next week I turn another year older, and I am just now learning to appreciate things like this, and I am glad for it.” It sounds kitsch, but it is what I want to write.

The early-bird summer bugs have begun to sing their songs. I am facing west and they sound like they are all behind me.

It is roundly accepted that the best fiction is a product of a “what if” scenario. What if George Washington was an alien, what if Bruce Willis didn’t know he was dead, etc. There have been several things in the last few days which I have observed and then said to myself, “I should write about that.” Then I have invariably forgotten them.

So what if I started carrying around a notebook and didn’t lose all these ideas?

Cougar, Detail, originally uploaded by jberthume.

I’m not sure how I managed to pull something like this off, but I took this picture today.

Snow Day, originally uploaded by jberthume.

It isn’t usually like this in Texas, but here you go.